Formation of S0 galaxies through mergers - Bulge-disc structural coupling resulting from major mergers

摘要

Context. Observations reveal a strong structural coupling between bulge and disc in S0 galaxies, which seems difficult to explain if they have formed from supposedly catastrophic events such as major mergers. Aims. We face this question by quantifying the bulge-disc coupling in dissipative simulations of major and minor mergers that result in realistic S0s. Methods. We have studied the dissipative N-body binary merger simulations from the GalMer database that give rise to realistic, relaxed E/S0 and S0 remnants (67 major and 29 minor mergers). We simulate surface brightness profiles of these S0-like remnants in the K band, mimicking typical observational conditions, to perform bulge-disc decompositions analogous to those carried out in real S0s. Additional components have been included when needed. The global bulge-disc structure of these remnants has been compared with real data. Results. The S0-like remnants distribute in the B/T – re – hd parameter space consistently with real bright S0s, where B/T is the bulge-to-total luminosity ratio, re is the bulge effective radius, and hd is the disc scalelength. Major mergers can rebuild a bulge-disc coupling in the remnants after having destroyed the structures of the progenitors, whereas minor mergers directly preserve them. Remnants exhibit B/T and re/hd spanning a wide range of values, and their distribution is consistent with observations. Many remnants have bulge Sérsic indices ranging 1